Meet the Family That Has Used the Same Christmas Tree for 34 Years

A California family has been rocking around the same Christmas tree for 34 years, and it's not fake. 

The Scotch pine Christmas tree was just two feet tall when Gina and Joe Mistretta, of Irvine, purchased it back in 1983.

“We had no expectations that it would last year after year,” she told Inside Edition. 

To put things in perspective, the video for Michael Jackson's "Thriller" video premiered on MTV and Ronald Reagan was in his first term as president when the Mistrettas bought the tree.

But when it came time to take the tree down after Christmas 1983, they felt bad about tossing it out with the trash, so they potted it instead. When they found it had remained healthy by the next December, they put it in their home again, and thus, a holiday tradition was born.

More than three decades later, the tree remains standing.

So how do they keep the remarkable tree healthy?

Joe says you need food, water, and you have to re-pot it to extend the tree's life.

Over the years, the Mistrettas were unable to fit the tree in the house, so Joe had to cut the top of it. This caused it to grow wider over the years, making it a peculiar sight.

“When you have a tree like this it can’t be perfect, it has to be tradition and sentiment,” Gina Mistretta said. 

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